by Tyler Guinn.
Seeing the graduating MSTP class go on to residency this year brought me mixed emotions of both nostalgia and excitement for the graduates. It was the first graduating class I felt I had got to know professionally and personally during my own MSTP journey. You know, not those distant 4th year medical students you see sporadically at journal club when you’re a MS1, but people you know at a personal level. I met each person of the class at slightly different times but reflecting back I realized each contributed to the MSTP community at Stony Brook in their unique ways as friends, role models, and trailblazers.
Bryce Schroeder & Raja Pillai had been my introduction to Stony Brook as volunteers to take interviewees out for dinner and drinks the night before stressful interviews. Their custom of welcoming potential students with a stress-free dinner has been maintained as a program tradition which seems to have strengthened the cohesion of our program and only grown since their initial efforts. Ping He was also one of the first students I met during interviews at Stony Brook offering campus tours for the students, interviewing applicants, and answering questions over lunch. When I moved to New York knowing no one, Ping welcomed me as a roommate where I lived with him and Greg Kirschen for several years. Greg provided innumerable conversations to me (and many others) over the years on transitioning into medical school, graduate school, dissertation writing, and challenges of the wards. Jesse Levine and Courtney Singleton taught me about lab opportunities at both Cold Spring Harbor laboratory and the Laufer Center for Quantitative for Physical and Quantitative Biology during hosted lunches and dinners for second visits, which played a large role in where I ended up for my Ph.D. lab. Lastly, Brinda Alagesan and Nick Schwartz became familiar faces through journal club, research rotations, and MSTP social events, where they gave back to the MSTP community such as answering many physician-scientist residency questions as shown below.
The leadership of the 2020 class was a distinctive feature that stood out at many MSTP (and medical school) events, including organizing the virtual match day and residency panel by Raja. They were often the first individuals to speak up during journal club or ask clinician-scientist questions about their careers, leading by example. They shared their own experiences of navigating grant writing (offering their own F30 applications), finding the right research mentor (PIs who now have had multiple successful MD-PhD students), tips for the wards (several obtained AOA & Golden Humanism Honor Society), and how to balance their personal interests such as marriage, marathon running, linguistics, and stand-up comedy.
Brinda Alagesan, MD, PhD. NYP Hosp-Weill Cornell Med Ctr, NY, Internal Med/Research
Ping He, MD, PhD. Rutgers-R W Johnson Medical School, NJ, Internal Medicine
Gregory Kirschen, MD, PhD. Johns Hopkins Hosp, MD, Obstetrics-Gynecology
Jesse Levine , MD, PhD. Baylor Coll Med-Houston, TX, Child Neurology/Neuroscience
Raja Pillai, MD, PhD. Baystate Medical Center & Childrens Hospital, Boston-MA, Peds-Prelim & Neurodevelopmental Disabilities
Bryce Schroeder, MD, PhD. Stony Brook Teaching Hospital, NY, Pediatrics
Nicholas Schwartz, MD, PhD. Pacific Med Center & Stanford Univ., CA, Med-Prelim/Neurology
Courtney Singleton, MD, PhD. Thomas Jefferson Univ, PA, Anesthesiology
The Stony Brook MSTP community will miss the class of 2020 but has only become better because of each of the graduating individuals who went through the program. Below we hear from the graduates on a residency panel as well as get a few answers to some last questions as they start their residency journeys across the country.
Residency Panel
1. Did you apply to categorical or PTSP or both? And what was the interview process like if you applied to both at the same institution?
2. When you applied to PSTP do you have to know which fellowship you want to go into?
3. How easy it is to change after you started the program?
4. If you apply to both categorical and PSTP but at the end you aren’t ready to commit to a fellowship or maybe you don’t want to do the fellowship at the same institution, can you rank the categorical higher than the PSTP and then match into categorical? There is probably internal communication within the institution between the PSTP and categorical so won’t the PSTP just rank you higher because they think you are a better fit because of your research or is it possible to rank the categorical program higher and do categorical at that institution?
5. A follow-up to that, for those who didn’t go into a PSTP, is that something that you can negotiate with the residency, and if so, how negotiable is that?
6. Where would one find a list of all of the U.S. PSTP?
7. How many programs did you apply to?
8. Can people comment on a rough budget, how much to save for applying to all the programs because it sounds like there is diversity in how many programs to apply, so what was a good range for you?
9. How important was it that you knew someone in the program? Do you suggest we reach out to people on our own? Also, some programs ask up to name people you want to be interviewed by, how do you choose the interviewers?
10. For IM PSTP, is the first two years of residency geared toward your future fellowship or do you get similar exposure but in a shorter period of time?
11. What were interviews like in general? What sort of questions did they ask?
12. Is the issue of prelim/advanced not a factor with PSTPs, i.e. do they guarantee both?
13. On interviews are the quantity/impactor factor of your papers grilled?
14. I also had a co-first author paper. I was curious how you answered that interview question?
15. Who did you get letters of recommendation from? Were letter requirements different if you applied to research-track residency?
16. How much relationship do you build before asking for the letter?
17. Should we email program directors before/after interviews to indicate interest?
18. How did you prepare your CBase account profile/ERAS application? What are some important points we should focus on?
19. How important is the timing of when you take Step 2 CK? Is it factored into receiving interview offers?
20. Which specialties are important to do aways?
21. How are things in CBase transferred to ERAS?
Rajapillai Pillai Concluding Thoughts:
1) When you came to Stony Brook, what were you interested in pursuing?
- When I came to Stony Brook, I was set on pursuing child psychiatry.
2) Why did you pick your residency specialty? Did it change from your initial interest?
- When I set up my rank list, I applied to both child psychiatry programs and neurodevelopmental disabilities programs. I interleaved them based on the individual program. Three of my top five were child psychiatry research track programs and two were neurodevelopmental disabilities programs. Basically after doing research and away rotations I realized that what I really wanted to focus on, in science and in medicine, is the monumental challenge of caring for the physical and emotional needs of people with developmental disabilities who can’t vocalize what is wrong on their own. Child psychiatry research track had the advantage of having more dedicated research time to develop that side of my career, but neurodevelopmental disabilities had the advantage of really understanding these disorders from a multidisciplinary level—pediatric, neurologic, and psychiatric—that child psychiatry alone might miss in this population.
3) What attracted you to the particular residency program you will be starting soon?
- Boston Children’s Hospital had a few things going for it. First, I really liked the people there and the community seemed more my type of people than other NDD programs I had looked at. Second, they were pretty flexible in letting me get additional training in psychiatry, so this is probably the closest I can get to having my cake and eating it as well. Boston is also a reasonable distance from my family in upstate New York, and when my girlfriend matches to residency there will be plenty of options for her in that city. Of course, before that I will be doing two years of general pediatrics at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield Massachusetts, which was also an important part of my decision. I’ll be the first NDD-bound resident there, so there’s room for me to shape the program somewhat. Also the people there are really genuinely kind people.
4) Any anecdotes from your time at Stony Brook you would like to share.
- Oh boy. There’s a lot. I’ll say outright that from Kindergarten on, Stony Brook was by far my favorite phase of my education. The mentors I’ve had here are the best and closest I’ve had, and I have at least 10 or so people that I know will be friends for life. As for anecdotes, well, I tend to think back to my preclinical extracurriculars, such as writing and filming Law and Order: SBU for Evening of the Arts, performing children’s plays with other students (including several MSTP students!), and experiencing the delightful quirks of all the interesting people I’ve met here. You’ll have to contact me separately for specific anecdotes.
5) Any comments on setting up or navigating the Zoom match day as a unique and innovative way of dealing with current events.
- So I’ll be honest—being the point person for setting up Match Day was actually really stressful. There would be impromptu meetings for testing which ended up taking quite a few hours each day, and things were moving so quickly that I had to be in constant contact and missing a message led to quite a bit of stress. I honestly wasn’t sure if it would be worth it, but I’m happy to say that I was wrong. For a large percentage of students there’s something magical about match day and being able to revel in other peoples’ celebration and share your own news is really quite special, even if it is a new medium.
Greg Kirschen Concluding Thoughts:
1) When you came to Stony Brook, what were you interested in pursuing?
- Neurology or endocrinology
2) Why did you pick your residency specialty? Did it change from your initial interest?
- Interest in surgery, pregnancy research, women’s physical and mental health, endocrinology
3) What attracted you to the particular residency program you will be starting soon?
- Reputation, education-focused, strong mentorship and alumni success
4) Any statements about your time at Stony Brook you would like to share.
- 8 years flew by. If I had to pick, I’d say I still feel like an MS2 internally.
5) Any comments on setting up or navigating the Zoom match day as a unique and innovative way of dealing with current events.
- I thought it was well done and still felt special.
Nick Schwartz Concluding Thoughts:
1) When you came to Stony Brook, what were you interested in pursuing?
- The Stony Brook MSTP benefits from longstanding strong leadership and institutional support. SBU attracted me with its tremendous breadth of research opportunities with an entire university and CSHL in addition to clinical department labs. Eight years later, I still hope to translate discoveries in the lab to treat neural disease.
2) Why did you pick your residency specialty? Did it change from your initial interest?
- Neurology is the most interesting field, duh! It’s the perfect mix of with diseases that affect our personhood, clinically playing detective with the latest advances in technology and most old-school nuanced physical exam maneuvers, and a constantly evolving field integrated with research prime for an explosion of therapies. If you are interested, please don’t hesitate to reach out!
3) What attracted you to the particular residency program you will be starting soon?
- Stanford had the perfect mix of basic/translational/clinical research, clinical training, and a great program culture in an area with amazing weather, great off-day getaways, and a diverse population. Also the hospital was 3 days old when I visited and really seemed like an incredible place to work. Silicon Valley was the perfect location for my partner who is interested in the start-up/venture capital world. CPMC also has a great culture and reputation for clinical care and training and I’m loving being in SF for a year before moving to Silicon Valley.
4) Any statements about your time at Stony Brook you would like to share.
- Seawolf for life! I really valued all the impromptu conversations I had with everyone in this program, really facilitated by having so many labs adjacent to the hospital. These covered topics from everything from our struggles in lab and returning to the clinic, the effects of NIMBYism in Long Island, and the musical catalog of Curren$y. Also shout-out to MSTP Mondays, hope those continue!
5) Any comments on setting up or navigating the Zoom match day as a unique and innovative way of dealing with current events.
- It was great for the school and Raja to work out a solution in a short time span. My roommates (including none other than Jay) threw a party for me with an envelope opening with a printed letter, cake, and pizza. Of course I had dreamed of a letter opening ceremony with my family and close friends at the SOM, but it was a terrific short-term solution in the midst of an evolving health crisis and a moment I’ll really cherish for the rest of my life.
Tyler Guinn, PhD, recently graduated from his PhD in Biomedical Engineering and returned to MS3. He received the 2020 President’s Award to Distinguished Doctoral Students and he is interviewed in this newsletter.